Aquatic physical therapy is often used as part of the rehabilitative treatment of injuries to the spine and limbs in general and to injuries to the spine and legs in particular. Aquatic physical therapy is particularly effective in the rehabilitation of injuries to the legs and spine because the viscosity of the water presents a resistance to the movement of the legs and yet relieves the stress of gravity on the legs and spine because of its buoyancy effect on the human body.
Although aquatic physical therapy is very useful in the treatment of injuries to the spine and limbs, it has drawbacks in that it is often necessary that a trained physical therapist assist the patient undergoing rehabilitation. That is, although the water helps reduce the strain that is placed on the patient's spine and legs during exercise, it is still often necessary for the physical therapist to support the patient and assist in the movement of the patient's legs during the treatment. Therefore, the physical therapist can only assist one patient at a time during the aquatic rehabilitative treatment which reduces the effectiveness of the physical therapist and only enables the patient to undergo aquatic physical therapy when a physical therapist is available to assist them.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an aquatic physical therapy device which enables the patient to conduct aquatic rehabilitation exercises without the direct assistance of a physical therapist.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an aquatic physical therapy device which allows the user to manually assist the movement of his or her legs during aquatic rehabilitative treatment.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an aquatic physical therapy device which maximizes the intensive workout of a patient's legs by restraining the movement of the patient's hands and arms during the aquatic rehabilitative exercises.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a method of using the above-disclosed aquatic physical device of the present invention.